Babur to Aurangzeb and the later Mughals (1526 to 1857): the great rulers, the Sur interregnum, the mansabdari and zabti systems, religious policy, art and architecture, the chronicles and travellers, and the eighteenth-century decline, with reference tables and authored CAPF practice
The Mughal Empire (1526 to 1857, at its political height to 1707) was the greatest of the medieval Indian states, founded by Babur at the First Battle of Panipat and built into a centralised, prosperous, and culturally brilliant empire by his grandson Akbar. The Mughals welded north India and much of the Deccan into a single administrative system based on the mansabdari rank order and the zabti land-revenue settlement, presided over a synthesis of Persian and Indian art and architecture, and produced a rich chronicle literature (the Baburnama, the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri). The sources combine these court chronicles with the accounts of European travellers (Sir Thomas Roe, Bernier, Tavernier, Manucci), inscriptions, and a fine coinage.
For CAPF, the Mughals are among the most heavily tested topics. The examiner favours the ruler order, king-to-event and king-to-monument matching, the mansabdari terms (zat and sawar), Akbar's religious and revenue policies, the great Shah Jahan monuments, which European traveller visited which emperor, the battle dates (especially the three Battles of Panipat), and the causes of the post-Aurangzeb decline.
Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, a Timurid prince of Farghana (descended from Timur on his father's side and from Chinggis Khan on his mother's), founded the empire. He won three decisive battles:
Babur wrote his memoirs, the Baburnama (Tuzuk-i-Baburi), in Turki (Chaghatai Turkish), a candid and observant work.
Humayun lost the empire to the rising Afghan Sher Shah Suri after the battles of Chausa (1539) and Kannauj / Bilgram (1540). He spent some fifteen years in exile (in Sindh and at the Safavid court in Persia), recovered Delhi and Agra in 1555 with Persian help, and died in 1556 from a fall down the steps of his library (Sher Mandal). His tomb at Delhi, the first great Mughal garden-tomb, was built by his widow Bega Begum.
Sher Shah Suri (1540 to 1545), an Afghan of remarkable administrative genius, ruled the brief but important Sur empire. He built (rebuilt and extended) the Grand Trunk Road (Sadak-i-Azam, from Sonargaon in Bengal to the north-west), introduced the silver rupiya and the copper dam (the basis of the later rupee), reformed land revenue by measuring and classifying land and fixing the demand (the system Akbar's officials later refined), built sarais (rest-houses) and a postal system, and constructed his own tomb at Sasaram (Bihar). His reforms are a favourite "who introduced the rupee / GT Road" question.
Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, the real architect of the empire, came to the throne as a boy under the regent Bairam Khan and won the Second Battle of Panipat (1556) against Hemu (Hemchandra Vikramaditya), the Hindu general of the Afghans. Once in power, Akbar pursued territorial expansion (Rajputana, Gujarat, Bengal, Kabul, Kashmir, Sindh, parts of the Deccan) and, more famously, a policy of conciliation and religious tolerance:
Nuruddin Salim Jahangir is known for his queen Nur Jahan (Mehr-un-Nisa), who wielded great political influence (the "junta" with her father Itimad-ud-Daula and brother Asaf Khan), and for his interest in painting and natural history (his memoirs are the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri). The English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe visited his court (1615 to 1619) on behalf of King James I and the East India Company and secured trading rights at Surat; the earlier English visitor William Hawkins had come in 1608. The Sikh Guru Arjan Dev was executed during his reign. Jahangir built the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula at Agra (the "Baby Taj", an early use of pietra dura) and laid out the Shalimar Bagh in Kashmir.
The reign of Shah Jahan (Khurram) is the golden age of Mughal architecture. He built the Taj Mahal at Agra (for his queen Mumtaz Mahal, completed around 1653), the Red Fort (Lal Qila) and the Jama Masjid at Delhi, and the new capital Shahjahanabad, and commissioned the jewelled Peacock Throne (Takht-i-Taus) and the Moti Masjid. The French traveller Francois Bernier and the jeweller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, and the Italian Niccolao Manucci, visited in this period. His reign saw costly Deccan campaigns and a failed attempt to recover the Timurid homelands (the Balkh and Qandahar campaigns). In the war of succession among his sons, Aurangzeb won and deposed and imprisoned his father in the Agra fort, where Shah Jahan died in 1666.
Muhi-ud-din Muhammad Aurangzeb, who took the title Alamgir ("world-seizer"), brought the empire to its greatest territorial extent (annexing Bijapur in 1686 and Golconda in 1687) but also to over-extension and growing strain. A devout and austere ruler, he reversed Akbar's policy of conciliation: he re-imposed the jizya (1679), discouraged music and lavish display at court, and executed the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1675). He fought long, exhausting wars in the Deccan against the Marathas (Shivaji, who had been crowned Chhatrapati in 1674, and his successors) and the Deccan sultanates, spending his last decades there. He compiled the legal digest Fatawa-i-Alamgiri (a compendium of Hanafi law). His policies and unending wars are commonly seen as having sapped the empire.
Mughal India was, by contemporary standards, prosperous and populous. Agriculture was the foundation, and the cash-based zabti settlement pushed cultivators toward marketable crops (cotton, indigo, sugarcane, opium) alongside food grains. The empire had a flourishing textile industry (Bengal muslin, Gujarat and Coromandel cottons, Kashmir shawls), and exported textiles, indigo, saltpetre, and spices, drawing in silver bullion through the European trading companies (Portuguese, Dutch, English, French). Towns such as Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Ahmedabad, Surat (the chief western port), Patna, and Dhaka were large commercial centres. The currency was trimetallic: the gold mohur, the silver rupiya, and the copper dam. Society was hierarchical, headed by the mansabdari nobility (a multi-ethnic service class of Turanis, Iranis, Afghans, Rajputs, and Indian Muslims), below whom were the zamindars (intermediary landholders), the peasantry, artisans organised in karkhanas, and merchants and bankers (the sarrafs and the great firms). The condition of the peasantry varied with the revenue demand, which grew heavier in the later period.
| Measure | Akbar | Aurangzeb |
|---|---|---|
| Jizya | Abolished (1564) | Re-imposed (1679) |
| Pilgrim tax | Abolished (1563) | Re-imposed |
| Music and court display | Patronised | Discouraged |
| Policy doctrine | Sulh-i-kul (peace with all); Din-i-Ilahi | Orthodox Islam; Fatawa-i-Alamgiri |
| Rajput relations | Alliance and high office | Strained; the Rajput and Maratha wars |
| Sikh Gurus | Relations cordial (granted land at Amritsar) | Executed Guru Tegh Bahadur (1675) |
Mughal architecture fused Persian, Central Asian, Timurid, and Indian elements: the char-bagh (four-quartered) garden, the bulbous dome, the pishtaq (arched portal), the use of red sandstone and white marble, and pietra dura (parchin kari, inlay of semi-precious stones). Landmarks in order: Humayun's Tomb (the first great Mughal garden-tomb, the forerunner of the Taj); Fatehpur Sikri with the Buland Darwaza, Jodha Bai's palace, and the Panch Mahal (Akbar); the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula and the Shalimar Bagh (Jahangir); and the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Jama Masjid, and Shahjahanabad (Shah Jahan). Mughal miniature painting, a blend of Persian and Indian styles, flourished above all under Jahangir, who patronised masters such as Ustad Mansur. Persian was the court and administrative language, and Urdu (the "camp language") developed as a composite tongue.
After Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the empire declined rapidly:
The empire survived only in name through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, increasingly under the protection of the British East India Company, until the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II (Zafar), was deposed and exiled to Rangoon after the Revolt of 1857.
| Ruler | Reign | Key fact |
|---|---|---|
| Babur | 1526 to 1530 | Founder; First Panipat (1526); Khanwa (1527); Baburnama (in Turki) |
| Humayun | 1530 to 1540, 1555 to 1556 | Lost to Sher Shah (Chausa 1539, Kannauj 1540); regained Delhi 1555 |
| Sher Shah Suri | 1540 to 1545 | GT Road; rupiya and dam; land-revenue reform; tomb at Sasaram |
| Akbar | 1556 to 1605 | Second Panipat (1556); mansabdari; Sulh-i-kul; Din-i-Ilahi (1582); Todar Mal's zabti |
| Jahangir | 1605 to 1627 | Nur Jahan; Sir Thomas Roe (1615); Guru Arjan Dev executed; Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri |
| Shah Jahan | 1628 to 1658 | Taj Mahal; Red Fort; Jama Masjid; Peacock Throne; Bernier and Tavernier |
| Aurangzeb (Alamgir) | 1658 to 1707 | Re-imposed jizya (1679); Deccan wars; Guru Tegh Bahadur executed; Fatawa-i-Alamgiri |
| Battle | Year | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| First Battle of Panipat | 1526 | Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi; the empire is founded |
| Battle of Khanwa | 1527 | Babur defeats Rana Sanga of Mewar |
| Battle of Ghaghra | 1529 | Babur defeats the Afghans of the east |
| Battle of Chausa | 1539 | Sher Shah defeats Humayun |
| Battle of Kannauj (Bilgram) | 1540 | Sher Shah defeats Humayun; Humayun loses the empire |
| Second Battle of Panipat | 1556 | Akbar (Bairam Khan) defeats Hemu |
| Battle of Haldighati | 1576 | Akbar's forces (Man Singh) versus Maharana Pratap of Mewar |
| Third Battle of Panipat | 1761 | Ahmad Shah Abdali defeats the Marathas |
| Work / visitor | Associated with |
|---|---|
| Baburnama | Babur (memoirs, in Turki) |
| Humayun-nama | Gulbadan Begum (Humayun's sister) |
| Akbarnama / Ain-i-Akbari | Abul Fazl (on Akbar) |
| Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri | Jahangir (memoirs) |
| Padshahnama | Abdul Hamid Lahori (on Shah Jahan) |
| Sir Thomas Roe | Jahangir (English ambassador, 1615 to 1619) |
| William Hawkins | Jahangir (English, 1608) |
| Bernier, Tavernier | Shah Jahan / Aurangzeb (French) |
| Niccolao Manucci | Shah Jahan / Aurangzeb (Italian) |
| Reign | Monuments |
|---|---|
| Humayun | Humayun's Tomb (the first great Mughal garden-tomb), built by his widow |
| Akbar | Fatehpur Sikri, the Buland Darwaza, the Panch Mahal, Agra Fort, Akbar's tomb at Sikandra |
| Jahangir | Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula ("Baby Taj"), Shalimar Bagh (Kashmir) |
| Shah Jahan | Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Jama Masjid, Shahjahanabad, Moti Masjid, Peacock Throne |
| Aurangzeb | Badshahi Mosque (Lahore), Bibi ka Maqbara (Aurangabad), Moti Masjid (Red Fort) |
The mansabdari system was the institutional spine of Mughal power: by tying every officer's rank, pay, and military obligation (the sawar quota of cavalry) to the state, and by keeping mansabs non-hereditary and transferable, Akbar created a salaried, rotating service nobility loyal to the crown rather than to land, an early imperial bureaucracy and standing-force model. The jagirdari and zabti systems linked this military service directly to a measured, cash-based land revenue. The breakdown of these systems (the jagirdari crisis, the growth of hereditary and autonomous nobles and provinces) is the structural story of the decline, a useful case study in how an over-extended centralised state fragments. The Mughal-Maratha contest and the management of the Deccan and the north-west frontier are recurring security themes.
Formats: ruler-to-event or ruler-to-monument matching; battle-to-year (especially the three Panipats); mansabdari terms (zat and sawar) and the zabti author (Todar Mal); which European traveller under which emperor; Akbar's religious measures; the order of the six great Mughals.
Authored practice (with answers):